ToxicWaste

all good. i know it can be frustrating, to constantly repeat the same points. therefore tones may slip. if you allow me to give some advice, keep reading. otherwise have a great day, and ignore the rest of this post.

i think it is useful to target the most powerful party: "you claim that ..." (the person trying to learn something) becomes "they claim that ..." (the company selling something). that way the person (if that person is genuinely trying to learn) is not pushed into a defensive stance.

additionally dont forget that you may be an expert on a certain toppic. but others are not and therefore need much more context to pick up just the right keywords. e.g: what is DEXA and why does a scan for osteopenia matter for body fat? or is +/-5% your personal quality gate or is it a medical standard?

anyway, i hope this shows why ppl may disagree with a post - even if agreeing with the main message. have a great day.

you don't seem to get my point entirely, so ill try to explain it here. your standpoint seems to be:

• body fat cannot be determined by impedance
• the measurements are that unreliable that the mere presence of the measurement hurts more than it helps

you present these points as expert, not as your opinion. in the comment thread you write: "I’m happy to delve into this subject in as much depth as you may be interested in". when someone asks you for sources, supporting these points (presumably because they are interested) - you deflect and take a combative stance. it is deflection, as you ask the person trying to learn something, to find proof that your point is wrong. since you (initially) did not provide sources for your points - you seem to take the absence of evidence (from the companies selling these) as evidence, that it can not work and will cause harm.

This line of argumentation makes me second guess your motivation. even though i agree with the overall viewpoint. i am not asking you to prove it is a scam. as you mentioned it is tedious and wasteful to prove every new scam attempt false. so if you shift your argumentation just slightly (which you did in your reply to me), the whole second guessing of motivation won't occur:

• The companies selling these products don't provide any proof, that these scales work as advertised
• especially in medicine it is required to proof, that the benefits hugely outweigh the drawbacks
• who is more likely to tell you a falsehood: the person actively trying to sell you something or the one not selling anything?
  • -> be more skeptical of the person with a motivation to mislead you and ask them to provide proof and sources

these points are a very strong argument IMO and don't require to do any more research. but they seem much more genuine as you don't appear go back on wanting to discuss the subject and don't take a combative stance towards the person probably trying to learn something.

man i largely agree with what you are saying and there are tons of useless 'fitness' products.

but you cannot claim to be "happy to delve into the subject" and when asked for sources simply deflect. you have to remember, that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

so if you want to believabily present yourself as an expert on the subject and have such an absolute standpoint - you need to present some good reasons. otherwise you have to soften your standpoint to something akin to: "there has ben no proof of its reliability". everything stronger seems disingenuous.

please don't do double speak: calling it a roman salute is already trying to give it any historical rationalisation.

it is a nazi salute. there is little to no evidence of romans doing that salute. the only history with that gesture starts around 1914.

while you are technically correct, most people would consider an iphone american, a samsung korean and a huawei chinese phones. although silicone, transistors, pcbs, etc. are from the same places you mentioned. assembly is likely china for anything requiring soldering...

here are some USB stick brands and where their home base (and most of the money) is:

• samsung - south korea
• sandisk - usa
• kingston - usa
• intenso - germany
• hama - germany
• philips - germany / netherlands
• disk2go (office world group) - switzerland
• toshiba - japan
• adata - taiwan

as you can see, there are many non-american companies selling USB memory. you get to choose where most of the money goes. we both know most of the 30 plus bucks you pay, does not go to the people doing the soldering.

edit: change manufacturers to brands for accuracy

just talked with a coworker about that. europe is heavily relying on microsoft products and investing a lot of money into them. we are certain, that all that money can easily pay for an expert team to develop and maintain a eu-gov linux distro.

i know that certain military branches maintain a hardened version of different linux distros for critical systems. why not take this to the next level and have an expert team maintaining your OS?

right now we don't have any real customers that use it - as the plugin did not sell yet.

but from testing at customer sites with real people that would use it - we got only positive feedback. which is not hard to imagine: the RAG + LLM enables less experienced users to navigate a huge and complex network of information.

but it for sure is also a buzzword execs like to see: they talked to us because we have AI. saw that the main product is good. bought the main product and decided the AI is too expensive.

in the end it doesn't matter to me. the 2w of AI was a fun sidequest and it left us with a passive boost for sales.

i know it is an unpopular opinion around here. but currently AI features open doors for sales. that is important.

for the software i help develop, we introduced an optional AI integration. just its presence allowed us to sell the main SW multiple times. the AI plugin was never sold so far.

investment AI: 2 weeks of gluecode. i am not concerned with finances, but that plugin is for sure net positive.

that's the great thing: you don't have to use it

as the screenshot shows, it is opt-in